Lesson 14:

Plate Tectonics II

Geological Oceanography
 Last class we learned about Earth’s
plates

 The Earth’s surface is a mosaic of rigid plates all

moving with respect to each other
 These movements result in many of the structural
features we see on Earth, like mountains, trenches
and ocean basins
 Plate movement also shapes continents, for example
leading to formation of mountains like the Himalayas

2
 Today we’ll learn more about plate
movement or plate tectonics

 As plates moves, they always interact with other plates

 The ways that plates interact along their boundaries
shape geological features of Earth’s surface and the
terrain
 The terrain of the seafloor includes seafloor (abyssal)
hills, mountain chains (ridges, islands and seamounts),
trenches and great platforms, all formed by tectonic
processes

3
 Map of the ocean floor

This map shows

that the ocean
floor has
underwater
mountain chains
(shown by the
tan lines)

4 Photo: NOAA-OE/WHOI
 There are three types of plate boundaries

1. Divergent Boundary: Two plates move apart,

called Spreading Centers
2. Convergent Boundary: Two plates collide,
called Subduction Zones
3. Conservative Boundary: Two plates slide past
one another, called Transform Faults

5
 Divergent boundary

 Two plates move away from each other, pulling crust apart
 As crust pulls apart, magma (molten rock) rises up to form new
crust and seafloor, a process called seafloor spreading
 The spreading center is raised because of the heat of the
magma and sometimes has a central rift valley, as in the mid-
Atlantic Ridge
 Most spreading centers are found within the new seafloor they
are forming
Spreading center

Plate 1 Plate 2

Magma
6
 Divergent boundaries and mid-ocean ridges

 Mid-ocean ridges are continuous mountain chains

found in all the world’s ocean basins
 Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent boundaries
(spreading centers)
 The entire mid-ocean ridge system is the longest
continuous mountain chain on earth!
– (Over 40,000 miles long and found primarily below 2000 m)
 Examples of mid-ocean ridges:
– Mid-Atlantic Ridge: runs down center of Atlantic Ocean basin
– East Pacific Rise: runs down Pacific Ocean basin, parallel to
South and Central America
7
 Close-up of ocean ridge

This image
shows a mid-
ocean ridge
mountain chain
called the East
Pacific Rise
Photo: NOAA-OE/WHOI

8
 Convergent boundary

Two plates collide with each other

– Oceanic-Oceanic plates: Can form trenches or
island arcs like the Aleutian Islands
– Oceanic-continental plates: Oceanic plate gets
subducted, pushed beneath, the continental plate
 Forms oceanic trenches and volcanic mountains on land,
like the Cascade Mountains and the Andes Mountains
– Continental-continental plates: Form mountains as
crust folds together, like the Himalayas

9
 Aleutian Islands: A result of plate
tectonics

This map shows the

location of the Aleutian
Islands, which were
created as a resulted of
oceanic-oceanic plate
convergence

Photo: NOAA
A recent NOAA voyage to the Aleutian Island area
uncovered rarely seen Subarctic oceanic life, like this
snailfish
10
 Conservative boundary

 Two plates slide past one another in opposite

directions, parallel to, and along a transform
boundary, also known as a transform fault
 This results in earthquakes, like those in California
along the San Andreas Fault (the boundary between
the Pacific and North American plates)
Plate 1

Plate 2

11
 Viewing the global terrain

 The plate movement you learned about

results in the geological terrain that makes
up our planet
– Examples include mountains, trenches, valleys
and volcanoes
 We’ll get a global view of these features
during the student activity, when we take a
trip to space

12